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Nessun dorma!

Today is Australia Day, the official National Day of Australia, which is celebrated annually on 26 January in Australia and by Australians living abroad.

Pavarotti performed in Australia many times during his career, but there is another important Australian connection for Pavarotti. The Australian soprano Dame Joan Sutherland was together with her conductor husband Richard Bonynge instrumental for Pavarotti’s career on stage and on record, especially in the early stages of his career. Pavarotti and Sutherland made many landmark recordings on Decca together, as well as performing in operas and concerts together.

In the following video Pavarotti and Sutherland sing the duet “Prendi: l’anel ti dono” from the Bellini opera La Sonnambula from a concert in 1983 in Sydney, Australia with Bonynge conducting. This concert is available on CD and DVD.

The Three Tenors performed in Australia once. On 1 March 1997 The Three Tenors performed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne as part of their World Tour together with conductor Marco Armiliato. At this concert The Three Tenors surprised their audience by singing the popular Australian song “Waltzing Matilda“, by many described as the country’s “unofficial national anthem”.

Pavarotti held solo concerts in Australia as well. More on that in another post. Let’s end these Australia Day celebrations with a clip of Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma!” from The Three Tenors concert mentioned above. Clearly Pavarotti conquered Australia too! 🙂

Happy Australia Day everybody, especially my Australian followers! 🙂

This blog post no. 303 was first published 26-01-2016. Last revision 26-01-2016.

The Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo is still active as a singer and conductor. It’s amazing how active he still is considering his high age. Needless to say Domingo was one of The Three Tenors together with Pavarotti and Carreras.

To celebrate his 75th birthday on 21 January, 2016, a 2 CDs compilation entitled “Domingo: The 50 Greatest Tracks“ has just been released on Deutsche Grammophon. This compilation is also available on download and streaming.

The 25th anniversary for the very first Three Tenors concert is on July 7, 2015. Can you believe it? It’s 25 years since the very first Three Tenors concert in Rome, July 7, 1990 (!!!).

And what a great concert it was! The match of the three operatic giants, the tenors Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, was a match made for the opera history books. Read more about the historic concert here.

To mark the 25th anniversary Decca has just issued a special 25th anniversary edition of the concert containing the complete concert on CD and DVD. Included on the DVD is also a documentary about the concert entitled “The Impossible Dream” which contains behind-the-scenes footage, rehearsals and interviews.

In order to mark this historic concert Decca has also just reissued the concert on LP (!!!). The arrival of this very special 25h anniversary LP edition will bring back this concert to vinyl for the first time since its original release in 1990!

It’s time to revisit this historic concert one more time! Let The Three Tenors sing! 🙂

My series of posts with Pavarotti arias A-Z continues. In fact, we are halfway in this fantastic journey, so let’s go!

Today is the letter N and it’s absolutely no discussion that the aria of today is “Nessun dorma!”. This is of course the wonderful aria from the Puccini opera Turandot which became Pavarotti’s signature aria above all.

Here is Pavarotti in the aria for the letter N: “Nessun dorma!” from the Grammy 1999 awards show.

While “Fiesta 2014″ tries to capture the spirit of the host country, “England Anthems 2014” tries to burst moral for the England team in the World Cup. The album even contains God Save The Queen, Rule Britannia and excerpts from one of the Second World War speeches of Winston Churchill, followed by a song by Vera Lynn!

Both albums are available on CD, download and streaming. What both albums have in common is Pavarotti as he sings the World Cup classic Nessun dorma! from the Puccini opera Turandot on both albums. On “Fiesta 2014″ it’s the classic 1972 studio recording and on “England Anthems 2014” it’s the live recording from the first Three Tenors concert in Rome in 1990. On both versions Zubin Mehta conducts.

But frankly, could Nessun dorma! really be considered as an anthem for England? For English football? Really!? You discuss that among yourselves! 🙂

Enjoy the World Cup 2014 and may the best team win! But first, enjoy this fantastic video with Pavarotti singing Nessun dorma! from the Three Tenors concert in Paris in 1998.

The very first Three Tenors concert was held in Rome, Italy on July 7, 1990. After that first concert many more Three Tenors concerts followed, but this first one will always stand out as special. For many reasons.

The joint concert between the Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti and the two Spanish tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras was a surprise as the three tenors, and in particular Pavarotti and Domingo, were considered as tenor rivals.

The concert was put together on relatively short notice as a charity concert and to mark the world football (soccer) championship (FIFA World Cup) which were held in Italy in the summer of 1990. The concert itself was held at the eve of the FIFA World Cup Final in Rome.

The great surprise of the evening was that the three tenors also sang a medley of arias and songs together. An encore of “‘O sole mio“ followed, and an impromptu joint performance of “Nessun dorma!” concluded the concert. Needless to say, the concert was a huge success and started the Three Tenors phenomena.

The concert was broadcasted live on TV and radio in many countries, and in the days and months that followed on TV all over the world. The audio and video recording of the concert was issued about a month later. The audio album is to this day the biggest selling classical album in world history. The concert is still available on Decca in every audio and video format known to man (except for Blu-ray), and it still sells over 20 years after its first release.

After the 1990 concert The Three Tenors held many more concerts together during the 1990s and early 2000s. I’ve managed to count 36 Three Tenors concerts in total. In 1994, 1998 and 2002 The Three Tenors held their FIFA World Cup concerts. Several Three Tenors audio and video recordings followed.

The very first Three Tenors concert in Rome, July 7, 1990 will always be special. It will never be forgotten. To remember that magic evening here is Pavarotti singing “Torna a Surriento“, followed by The Three Tenors singing “‘O sole mio”, first from the medley, then as the encore.

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This post was first published 07-07-2013 with the title “The very first Three Tenors concert in Rome, July 7, 1990”. Last revision 11-07-2014.